Quarterly sector accounts, UK: January to March 2024

• The household saving ratio is estimated to have increased to 11.1% in Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2024, from 10.2% in the previous quarter.

• The increase in the saving ratio was driven by increases in compensation of employees of £4.3 billion and the adjustment for pension entitlements of £3.7 billion.

• Real households' disposable income (RHDI) is estimated to have grown by 0.7%, maintaining the same growth as Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2023.

• Within RHDI, nominal gross disposable income saw growth at 1.1%.

• The UK's borrowing position with the rest of the world as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have increased to 3.4% in Quarter 1 2024 from 3.3% in Quarter 4 2023.

• Financial corporations decreased their net lending position to 0.4% of GDP from 2.0% of GDP in the previous quarter; this was driven by a fall in net property income of £11.4 billion together with an increase in the adjustment for pensions entitlements of £3.7 billion and a rise in gross capital formation of £2.4 billion.

• Non-financial corporations decreased their net borrowing to 1.1% of GDP, from 2.7% of GDP in Quarter 4 2023; within non-financial corporations, private non-financial corporations saw the largest fall which was driven by a rise in net property income of £5.1 billion and an increase in gross operating surplus of £3.0 billion.

• Households increased their net lending position to 4.1% of GDP, up from 2.9% of GDP in Quarter 4 2023; this was driven by a rise in the adjustment for pension entitlements of £3.7 billion and an increase in income from wages and salaries of £3.0 billion.

• General government saw an increase in their net borrowing position to 5.9% of GDP in Quarter 1 2024, from 4.6% as a percentage of GDP in Quarter 4 2023.

Interactive glossary

Gross disposable household income and real household disposable income

Gross disposable household income (GDHI) is the estimate of the total amount of income that households have available to either spend, save, or invest including:

• income received from wages (and the self-employed)
• social benefits
• pensions
• net property income (that is, earnings from interest on savings and dividends from shares) less taxes on income and wealth

Adjusting GDHI to remove the effects of inflation gives real household disposable income (RHDI). This is a measure of the real purchasing power of households’ income, in terms of the physical quantity of goods and services they would be able to purchase if prices remained constant over time.

Household saving ratio

The saving ratio estimates the amount of money households have available to save as a percentage of their gross disposable income plus pension accumulations.

Net lending or borrowing

The net lending of a sector represents the surplus resources that a sector makes available to other sectors. Net borrowing represents their financing of a deficit from other sectors.

Net lending means a sector has money left over after its spending and investment in a given period, while net borrowing means it has spent and invested more than it received and has a need for financing, which may be covered by borrowing, issuing shares or bonds, or by drawing on reserves.

Revisions within this release

This bulletin includes new data for the latest available quarter, Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2024, with no revisions to previous time periods. This bulletin follows our National Accounts Revisions Policy.

Understanding the sector and financial accounts

This release presents analysis on UK aggregate data for the main economic indicators and summary estimates from the institutional sectors of the UK economy that are presented in the UK Economic Accounts (UKEA) dataset:

• public corporations
• private non-financial corporations
• financial corporations
• households
• non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH)
• central government
• local government
• rest of the world

This release uses data from the UKEA and provides detailed estimates of national product, income and expenditure, UK sector, non-financial and financial accounts, and UK Balance of Payments. These accounts are the underlying data that produce a single estimate of gross domestic product (GDP) using income, production, and expenditure data.

Quality and Methodology Information report

Our Quarterly sector accounts Quality and Methodology Information (QMI) report contains important information on:

• the strengths and limitations of the data and how they compare with related data
• uses and users of the data
• how the output was created
• the quality of the output including the accuracy of the data

System of National Accounts consultation

As part of an update to the System of National Accounts, the United Nations (UN) are in the process of consulting on several areas being considered for improvement. Previous and live consultations can be found on the UN Statistics Division website. If you would like to discuss any of these consultations with the Office for National Statistics (ONS), please contact us at sna.consultations@ons.gov.uk. Bodies outside the UK national statistical system are also free to respond to the consultations themselves.

Economic statistics governance after Brexit

Following the UK’s exit from the EU, new governance arrangements are being put in place that will support the adoption and implementation of high-quality standards for UK economic statistics. These governance arrangements will promote international comparability and add to the credibility and independence of the UK’s statistical system.

At the centre of this new governance framework will be the new National Statistician’s Committee for Advice on Standards for Economic Statistics (NSCASE). NSCASE will support the UK by ensuring its processes for influencing and adopting international statistical standards are world leading. The advice NSCASE provides to the National Statistician will span the full range of domains in economic statistics, including the national accounts, fiscal statistics, prices, trade and the balance of payments and labour market statistics.